1933 July
From LJT to Annette
14/1 Rowland Rd
Calcutta
6.7.33
My darling Annette
I am in some doubt whether to send this letter to school or not – but I think it will just catch you there. I do hope you will have nice summer holidays and lots of real hot weather – It seems that after a few cool rainy days, you plunged back into a heat wave early in July – so it was a pity you just did not have it for the Pageant. However I am glad it did not rain all went off well. It sounds as if it must have been great fun – and I wish I could have seen it.
Thank you so much for the snapshot of yourself. It is a charming little picture and makes you look very tall – as I suppose you are. When Uncle Harry looked at it, he said “Ha! She has her toes well in the corners of the sack.”
I have had an almost uncomfortably busy week – with really more to do each day than I had time to get through – For the two days that Bill Kaulback was here, I seemed to have time for nothing but looking after him and seeing him properly fitted out for this trip to Gyantze – I gave my senior Guides a good talking to – straight from the shoulder last week. They had been so slack and tiresome the previous week that I felt absolutely fed up with them – They looked a bit sheepish – and finally I said that I was not prepared to go on coaching them in 1st Class work, unless they were prepared to do their part and try to understand remember and practise – I then asked those who really did want to work to put up their hands – Two did – at once – and the rest rather slowly – but it woke them up and they worked quite well afterwards. Nothing is more exhausting than trying to teach people who do not want to learn. Dad praised me quite a lot for one or two dives I did the other evening, so I hope I have made some progress – because, as you know, he finds it very much easier to criticize than to praise. I do hope you will be able to get quite a lot of batheing in the summer holidays.
I am a bit short of time this morning – so wont write any more.
Best love, my darling
from
Mum
From HPV to Annette
Calcutta
July 6th 1933
My dear Annette.
Out upon you. I much desire to know how diving progresses and if you can, and do, do a swallow or a jack knife. Guess that we have been bathing. Diving through a rubber life buoy is to us a new thing. And riding the red, or brown, cow (or horse?) is another. I have written about it to Rosemary. It is a ridiculous thing. If you squeeze it with your knees all is lost. Its head or its tail bulges with the air displaced by the squeeze and it flounders about: then almost certainly there’s a toss. It is amazing how it pinches the legs to ride it: a fold of rubber perhaps – for it bends up a bit when you sit on it.
I have missed my tea in order to get a bathe – twice. This is a sad thing though some people never have either tea or lunch. But I am dead beat when I come out of office. It is possible to get a cup of tea there but I forget to.
On Saturday I actually went to the Tollygunge races – but I didn’t watch them. As I know that I know nothing about horses and cannot spot the best among them I do not care which wins. I saw a good many people though. We had a puncture next day, while coming back from Tollygunge. A big piece of iron with a point at one corner stuck in the tyre. As we were on our way to see the baby. Joan was full of life: too full. A sturdy chap. At present he expects every one to study his wishes and convenience: and is a bit of a nuisance sometimes.
What more? I have not pursued the question of logs. It is easy to make mistakes with them.
Much love
Daddy.
From LJT to Annette
14/1 Rowland Rd
Calcutta
13.7.33
My darling Annette
Your half term marks are certainly very good – and its stupid of people to be jealous – The best thing to do is to try ones best not to notice. There are always certain types of people who are jealous of people who are cleverer, or prettier, or more amusing, or more popular, than themselves. The pitfall for people who have good brains or who are specially good at anything, is becoming conceited. Two shining examples of people who have not fallen into this pitfall are Major Meade, whom I daresay you remember at Jalpaiguri – who is marvellously good at all games and the amature champion billiard play of India – and whoe manner and way of talking about games are as simple as possible – The other is Mrs. Visser, who has done such wonderful feats of climbing and endurance at great altitudes, and who is a brilliantly clever woman, a remarkably clever linguist and a very good musician and who does not seem to have one ounce of conceit or affectation in her composition. Well! I should cheer up over the jealous people. I think you will find as you grown older that having a good brain, is worth the small inconvenience caused by jealously – only watch yourself carefully to see that you don’t slip into the way of letting yourself “swank” in the smallest degree.
I was interested to hear that you had been reading through Henry Vth and Richard II. I am ashamed to say that the first is a play I have never even read – The second I saw acted at the Old Vic and though a bit uneven, it has some of the most enchantingly beautiful scenes I know – The moment when Richard lands again on English soil ( - or rather I think it was actually Welsh soil, was’nt it?) and makes a most lovely speech about the soil of England. I do wish I had more time for reading. So much of what I do read now seems to be on special subjects and I always seem to be have Committee Reports to read too. I have just got a huge one about the Red Cross which I must wade through.
What is the book you mentioned called “Grave Fairy Tale”? I have never heard of it and think it is such an attractive title –
I hope the holidays are going well – Best love, darling
Mum
From HPV to Annette
Calcutta
July 13th
My dear Annette
What do I say of your list of marks? Formidable! Be not abashed by the comments of girls. Later you’ll find yourself dropping among others who run to your own standard. What is damping to one ardour is not the jealousy of others but the discovery that cleverness, ultimately, - book cleverness, smartness, epigram and such – doesn’t count for much besides plain common sense and judgement. So I regard with approval the activities connected with bread making and such which preserve a sense of proportion and help to develop judgement. There is more sound sense outside the books than in them. Just as books on games in themselves are a poor substitute for and a poor aid to playing them so all other books, on life so to speak. And taking a proper part in school life teaches more than the form work. Your Aunt Grace didn’t have an education worth a hoot so far as books went but the result was first class because she developed personality. Ultimately it is a matter of living oneself or reading about living.
What news? We went to see the great airplane arrive and didn’t. A yellow Chink affair like a bat or a boomerang with a body turned up. Flying from Berlin. My gum, what discomfort! A tiny open affair. There was stunting: but it was a flop so to speak. I was interested because I have seen very little of air planes. Aeroplane is the spelling which I have used elsewhere: and I have written the other here because I’ve been arguing about it.
Work is very heavy.
Much love
Daddie.
From LJT to Annette
14/1 Rowland Rd
Calcutta
20.8.33 (?July)
My darling Annette
Thank you very much for your letter, which though written in pencil in bed (I suppose!) has a nice lot of news in it. I am glad you had such a nice time out with Peggy. In spite of the fact that we are not in England, you seem to get a lot of going out. Your exam marks are very good. You must have been on the top of your form to get 98% in geometry. You will have quite a collection of French books for Dad to read when he comes home, at this rate.
I have had a very busy week, with a lot of Guide activities in it. We have had a Provincial Committee meeting, where we settled a lot of business – A special Guiders Club meeting on Thursday evening, where we asked for suggestions from all the Guiders and got a good many useful ones – On Saturday morning I had to go round interviewing various people about Guides – Rally on Tuesday and a special visit to the Blind Guides on Wed – so I think I have “done my bit” at Guiding this week.
I have been working hard at the typewriter too – I was awfully tempted to try to do my letters on it this week, but I am sticking to getting through all the exercises first, which means I learn the proper fingering and can go on to doing it by “Touch” and not by “Sight” as soon as I have time to give the practise to it.
Doing the exercises is good practise in concentrating on what is in itself a dull thing. Its easy enough to concentrate on something interesting – but to keep ones mind fixed on writing “but, run, bug, hung” for ten lines, without a mistake and doing it in five minutes, needs an almost grim detirmination I find!
I am simply longing for news of how and when you are going to have the operation on your eye. I hope it wont bother you much or prevent you doing things for many days. Forgive a short letter this week – This has been one of the days when I have had nothing but interruptions
Best love, my darling
from
Mum
From HPV to Annette
Calcutta.
July 20th
My dear Annette.
Whenever I see a singularly bad jest I reflect that would please Annette! Such as
Teacher “What was the Emperor of Russia Called?
Class The Tsar!
Teacher What was the Empress called?
Class The Tsarina!!
Teacher What was the Prince called?
One small child. The Tsardine”
Quite possible, too.
Growing cold and clambering out of the bath I bumped my skin. This morning I have put embrocation so liberally on the bruise that it feels as if I had fried my leg. My plain diving has improved a bit: but I am less and less succeeding with other dives. It would be a boon if some one could tell me what I am doing. Last Sundays struggles with the rubber cow or horse at Tollygunge were exhausting. I leapt on to its back from the springboard and from the bank or side of the bath (which is strange to say more difficult than from the board), but to get on to it while swimming was beyond me. It can be done. I have seen it done. But I lack the weight strength or knack. The animal stuggles desperately, rolls, rears up and plunges. And laughing helplessly I swallow pints. Another device is to have the rubber life buoy floating some eight feet out, leap into the air and come down sitting on it. Not as easy as you might think.
Your mother is practising vigorously on the typewriter: trying to learn the touch method. But she wont have the time. It takes a couple of months to learn it in a school that way: and she cannot wait all that time or spend hours a day on it. It is an engaging machine.
Much work. I’m tired out. Sorry that my handwriting should reflect this.
Yours
Daddie
From HPV to Annette
Calcutta
July 26th 1933
My dear Annette.
The best of luck to you, my child, and I hope that you didn’t find the operation painful or tedious. It is difficult to realise how long afterwards this letter will reach you. Last week’s letter from you enclosed a photo. It makes me gasp to see how fast you grow. Where are the thin legs of yesterday? – It amazes me by the way to see how you keep up the level of your work. I wish that I did. Always patchy in my case: fits and starts – and few finishes. Though it must be said that nowadays with work as heavy as it is, one cannot pretend to keep the standard up. I was in office till seven tonight. Incidentally I started work at a quarter to eight this morning. Deduct breakfast and lunch (but not tea – for I had no time for it) – but even so its too much. I’m dead beat. You may see it, perhaps in the heaviness of my letter.
However I did, last Saturday, succeed in getting on to the rubber horse from the water – after a stout struggle. I eat vast quantities of barley sugar.
Much love
Daddie
From LJT to Annette
(first typewritten letter)
14 ¼ Rowland Road
Calcutta
27th July 1933
My darling Annette
You seem to have got a very nice choice of prizes. Masefield’s poems are lovely. Did you know them before? Are the long poems like Renard the Fox, and Right Royal, in your book? I have them in little seperate volumes. The history of Everyday Things, if it is the same that Uncle Bernard used to have, is a most fascinating book. In a way it is disappointing not to get all the prizes you have won, but it is nicer to spread them out a bit, I think, and more unselfish if you are able to feel glad that someone else is happy. Mrs Petrie wrote me a long account of your doings with her, which interested me very much. She gave a very good account of you both, and says you have filled out a lot. We can see that too, in the photo you sent. In fact Dad is almost getting nervous lest you should begin growing fat next. We like the photo very much. What a nice-looking girl Peggy is. I hope someone will take some photos during the holidays. I liked Auntie’s idea of taking you all in line, arranged according to heights, because it gives us such a good idea of how much you have grown.
I am wondering whether you will have had the operation to your eye, before this reaches you. I hope Auntie will send me a letter by air mail about it. She tells me that you are going to stay a few days with Uncle Roy and Auntie Eleanor, (I seem to have put rather a lot of letter into that word) Do tell me about Pip. I thought him such an attractive baby when I left England.
It was sad that your very pet bit of back-stitching on your pyjamas should have been hidden by something else at the exhibition. Auntie Winsome is doing a lovely bit of wool embroidery, Petit Point I think it is. At any rate it is very fine and pretty.
Time is getting on and I must get on with some of my other letters.
Thank you for writing such long and interesting letters, even when you are away on a holiday.
Bless you, my darling, and lots and lots of love
From
Mum
P.S. I’m sorry I did not send a family letter to you last week. I did not know when I wrote, that you would be in London when that mail got home.
Mum